1.
In a city with very few, and very expensive taxis a lot of people when they first arrive resign themselves to being housebound, or hotel-bound. I suppose that there’s often so much to absorb that it doesn’t matter to begin with.
But freedom calls: a car must be bought.
Mind you that’s not easy: everything is so expensive, and there’s no system of bank loans or other financing. Cash is king. And how do I find the $30,000 that it costs to buy one? And where can I buy it from? New ones are truly exorbitant, and most of the rest are wrecks. We talk despondently about sharing a car and driver, knowing that that will never work; or hiring a local taxi for two hours a day to take us to and from work, and a bit of shopping or dining out.
The angels smile: an e-mail reaches me to state that someone who has lived here for four years is selling his car; just the right sort, a 4x4 with huge wheels and sturdy body. I can’t afford it, but I reply instantly. In due course it is mine, and we have a solemn handing over ceremony.
I’ve driven on the right hand side of the road often, so when people ask whether I’m scared, I say of course not.
But that is not in Kinshasa, because people drive on both sides. There’s a sort of official way of doing it – which means that you try and keep towards the right most of the time. And there’s the actual way of doing it, which is that you take the smoothest art of the road – whether it’s on the left or the right, it doesn’t matter. And if the pavement is smoother than the road, you use that. Now, is that scary or not?
Quite the opposite: it’s very liberating. It brings back a feeling I haven’t had since dodgem cars. You zoom from side to side with a song in your heart: thank god – no rules. Slow, slow, quick quick slow. Quickstep driving. A car comes directly towards you. If you’re on his side of the road, you just get out of his way seconds before he’s onto you. If he’s on your side of the road, the same. If you’re both in the middle, no worries, you just make way for each other. OK, there may occasionally be a bit of tension: some drivers are bullies and like to see whether they can push you off the road. But usually it’s a case of live and let live.
There are very few places where the roads are good enough to speed, so that’s not a problem: instead it is mostly a matter of concentrating on obstacles as one navigates the potholes, pedestrians and hand carts.
There are times when it is scary. The new road through the centre of town is now an eight lane superhighway with no road markings, and in the evenings and at week ends some people really go over the top. And the public transport minibuses: they are totally without fear. They don’t care about scrapes and dents as they have so many already, and will pass you in totally ridiculous situations, often on the right (=wrong) side.
The nice thing about having no rules is that the absurd ritual which one was taught at driving school of stopping at road junctions (“hand brake on, look left, look right, look left again, etc”) can be totally thrown out of the window. In fact, the best thing is to accelerate a little when coming to a T-junction so that one can squeeze just in front of oncoming vehicles. Roundabouts are the same. Charge straight in.
The funny thing is that rule-less driving happens even when policemen are directing traffic. Picture this. I am turning left at a junction manned by a policeman, who stands on a miniature band-stand. I do what most would consider the correct thing, stop just past the policeman and then when he has stopped the oncoming traffic I make a neat left-hand turn. But do other people do that? No way - if you spot the gap as you near the policemen you can just zoom across at the diagonal, far before reaching him. He might even smile nicely at you – admiring the natty piece of opportunistic driving.
But: if he has his hand out for you to stop and you don’t? Whoa!! That is a capital offence for which you will be given a very nasty lecture and be expected to pay for big time. But that’s another story.
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